


A Touch of Pneumonia

by ericsonclan



Series: OG World [20]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Pneumonia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericsonclan/pseuds/ericsonclan
Summary: Prisha's late for their morning walk, so Violet goes to her room to check what's going on. Hijinks ensue.
Relationships: Prisha/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Series: OG World [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815361
Kudos: 2





	A Touch of Pneumonia

**Author's Note:**

> (by Laura)

Violet stood by the front gates, impatiently kicking the ground. It was well past sunrise. She and Prisha had planned to take a morning walk together, but she’d been waiting over an hour and had still not seen Prisha emerge from the school. Violet swayed uneasily on her feet. She wanted to go in and see if Prisha was in her room, ask her what was going on. But she also didn’t want to be a stalker. What if Prisha had just forgotten? Would she think it was creepy if Violet hunted her down in her room? It was better to wait, even if standing here doing nothing was eating her up inside.

Omar emerged from around the corner of the school, carrying a basket of herbs and greens he had taken from the greenhouse. She had offered to help, but Omar had simply shook his head and went on his way. He had his morning routine of breakfast prep down to an art form. Bringing someone else into the process would only irk him.

Clem stood up on the watchtower, casting a concerned glance down at Violet from time to time. She’d tried to strike up a conversation once or twice, but Violet was too distracted to keep it going. AJ had gone off on patrol of the grounds, taking Rosie with him. Only Willy, Ruby, Aasim and Louis remained inside.

And Prisha.

Where was she? Was she trying to send some sort of message that she didn’t want to go on the walk after all? Violet shook her head in annoyance. No, that was stupid. There had to be a valid reason she wasn’t here. Prisha wasn’t the non-confrontational type.

“Maybe you should go check on her,”

Violet looked toward Clementine.

“It’s unusual for her to sleep in this late,”

“I guess,”

Awkward silence.

“If you want to cover watch, I can go in and check on her instead,”

Should she take her up on the offer? No, that was stupid. _God, Violet, get it together! You can do this – just go knock on her door._ Violet straightened her shoulders, steeling her resolve. “I’ve got this. I’ll see what’s up,” With that, she was off in the direction of the dorms.

\---

It didn’t take long before she was standing in front of Prisha’s door. Pausing for only a moment, Violet knocked on it resolutely.

No response.

What should she do?

“Uh, Prisha, are you in there?”

“Violet?”

“Clementine sent me to check on you,” _Coward. Mention the walk!_

“Violet, I…” her voice cut off.

“What was that?”

Nothing.

“Prisha? Prisha, I’m coming in!” Violet swung the door open, heart pounding.

Prisha lay upon her cot, her face flushed and sweaty. Her sheets lay in a twisted heap at her feet, her blanket pulled up to her chin. Prisha’s eyes met Violet’s, hazy and dark. She inclined her head to speak. “I think I have a touch of pneumonia,”

“What?!” Violet spat out. “A touch of pneumonia?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. It took me a bit longer to get out of bed, but I’m on my way now,” Prisha sat up, swaying a bit to the right as she did so. She dazedly reached for one of her boots.

“Prisha, you look fucking awful,”

Prisha tried to manage a smirk. “Is that any way to greet your girlfriend?”

“You know what I mean. We need to get you to Ruby right away,”

“Please,” Prisha shook her head in scorn. “This is nothing. If I truly had pneumonia, I would have a terrible cough to go with it. One with plenty of hacking and phlegm… but I’m breathing perfectly fine,” As she pulled one of her boots up, her body seized up and she began to cough violently, her body shaking with the force of it. She lifted watery eyes to meet Violet’s. “That was simply an example of what I don’t have,”

She’d had enough of this. “Ruby!” Violet shouted, booking it out of the room and down the hallway. “Ruby, get your ass out here now! Prisha’s sick!”

\---

About a half hour later, Prisha was propped up in bed with a plethora of extra pillows, looking quite peeved at the current arrangement. Violet stood by her bedside, arms crossed, daring Prisha to just try and escape again. She had already failed twice. Ruby was crushing some herbs in preparation to give to Prisha. Violet felt like rolling her eyes into the back of her skull. Prisha had been right with her self-diagnosis: she had pneumonia. Apparently her girlfriend was just too much of a stubborn ass to actually follow the medical protocol to get herself better.

Ruby walked over to Prisha’s bedside with a small bowl in her hands. “Alright, I’ve mixed the false boneset in with some berries to help improve the taste. Try to eat all of it, you hear?”

“Thank you, Ruby,” Prisha said, reaching out from her swarm of blankets to take the bowl. “You really didn’t have to trouble yourself,”

“Why, Sug, of course I did! We can’t have you being sick and worrying poor Violet here half to death,”

“It wasn’t that bad, really,”

Violet glared daggers at her.

“Well, if you don’t want to take it as medicine, the juice is rumored to work as a sort of aphrodisiac, so that’s a bonus,”

The girls stared at Ruby in horror.

“Anyways, I’ll leave ya girls to it. Make sure to stay in bed and drink plenty of the water Aasim brought up. Bye now!” With that, Ruby bustled out of the room.

Prisha looked down at the bowl with distaste, but scooped out a spoonful. She gulped it down loudly. “Whoopee,” she croaked. She turned her head to Violet. “Do I look sexier now?”

“If it’s an aphrodisiac, it would be working on you, not me since you’re the one who’s eating it, dumbass,”

“Ouch,” Prisha scowled. “You’re rude sometimes, you know that?”

“I’m only rude to idiots,”

“Now that’s taking it a little far, wouldn’t you say?”

“You refuse to admit you’re sick, try to sneak out of bed and won’t even take all your medicine! What am I supposed to fucking call that?”

“You know,” Prisha said, tossing a pillow to the floor. “A couple years back when I was pinned down by some walkers in an old dental office, I picked up a copy of Scientific American and it said that studies showed there was no proof of causation between bedrest and recovery from the common cold,” She threw another pillow to the ground.

Violet crouched to pick the pillows up and began chucking them back on the bed. “Well, you don’t have the common cold, you have fucking pneumonia!”

It became a race to see who could get more pillows onto the floor or the bed. Competition was fierce at first, but Prisha quickly grew winded and entered another coughing fit. Violet rushed forward to prop pillows behind her and lay her back against the fluffy mass. She began to place the extra pillows around Prisha’s sides.

“Violet, you’re smothering me,”

“I’m smothering the illness out of you!”

Suddenly Louis popped his head in. “Hey, there. Just thought I’d check in and see how you lovely ladies are doing,”

Both girls turned toward him with a look of vitriol. “Get the fuck out of here, Louis!”

“Ok, ok! Yeesh, message received!” As soon as he had appeared, he was gone.

The girls turned back toward each other.

Prisha eyed Violet warily. “If I promise to stay in bed and eat the rest of the medicine, will you stop hovering so goddamn close?”

“Fine,” Violet growled. “It’s a deal,” She made her way over to the other bunk and plopped down on it. “But don’t think I’m letting you out of my sight!”

\---

They sat like that for hours, Prisha dozing in and out of consciousness, Violet curled up on the opposite bed, never taking her eyes off her ward. Omar came by sometime in the afternoon with food, stating that Ruby had mixed more medicine into Prisha’s portion. Violet made sure Prisha ate it all and drank half of the pitcher of water on the dresser. The afternoon dragged on, hardly a word passing between the two. Willy and AJ had dropped off some books for their entertainment (and Garbage, though she had immediately scrambled out the door), but Prisha was too tired to read much and Violet couldn’t be bothered to try. Finally, as night began to set in and Violet lit the room’s candles, Prisha spoke.

“I’m sorry for being an ass,”

Violet was silent, unsure and unwilling to respond.

Prisha sighed and continued. “You know I was on the road for years. During that time, I didn’t have a bed. I hardly ever had medicine. When I got sick, I had no one to depend on but myself. I couldn’t rest because I had to keep moving. And I survived. I didn’t let any illness take me down, no matter how fucking awful I felt,”

Violet couldn’t meet Prisha’s eyes. “That doesn’t mean you have to do the same now,”

“I know. I know I should be grateful that I don’t have to press through anymore, that I have people to take care of me…” Prisha drifted off. “This is going to sound fucking stupid,”

“Try me,”

“When you came in and saw how sick I was and got Ruby, hauled all these pillows and blankets in here and made sure I was eating and drinking water and lying down…. It reminded me of my mom,”

“… Is that a bad thing?”

“No, it isn’t.” Prisha let out a heavy sigh, laying back on her pillows. “Whenever I got sick when I was little, she would absolutely bury me in blankets. She made this special soup full of spices and veggies that she said her grandma had made way back whenever my mom was little and got sick, and she’d forced me to eat every last bite. She’d sit with me all day and we’d watch all these Indian dramas on TV, really stupid, soap-opera type shit. She wouldn’t leave me for a single second,”

The room was quiet. Violet heard a soft sniffle. Was Prisha crying? She turned to look.

Her girlfriend’s eyes shone with tears and her nose was running. She was gazing out the window. “I know I shouldn’t project my own shit onto you. It’s just… you taking care of me made me miss my mom so fucking much,” She was crying now, her sobs catching in her throat.

“Hey,” Violet exclaimed, approaching the bed. “Hey, no, it’s alright. That’s not stupid,”

“Yeah, it is,” Prisha insisted, burying her face amongst the pillows.

What could she possibly say back? Unsure what else to do, Violet crawled up on the bed, laying beside Prisha and wrapping an arm around her.

Prisha turned her head back in shock. “No, don’t. You’ll get sick,”

“Don’t worry about it. Pneumonia’s not gonna fuck with me,” Violet nestled herself deeper against Prisha, the blanket pile enveloping both of them. Prisha adjusted her right arm which lay above them both, reaching out to gently play with Violet’s hair. Violet felt some of the tension leave her body as she relaxed under the covers.

It was a minute or two before she spoke again.

“My mom worked three different jobs. She wasn’t home most of the time, and neither was my dad. Whenever I got sick, she’d call my grandma to come over since she couldn’t miss her shift, then head out,”

“So you were alone at home?”

“Yeah, but that’s how it was most days anyways,”

“Did your grandma stay with you then?”

“Sorta. She’d come by after a few hours with a can of Campbell’s soup and heat it up in the microwave. Then she’d sit in the living room and watch her shows till my mom got home,”

“She wouldn’t sit with you?”

“Sometimes I’d go out in the living room with my blanket and watch with her. When she fell asleep, I’d switch the channel to cartoons,”

Prisha paused in her hair brushing. “I’m sorry,”

“Why?”

“My words must have come across as inconsiderate, complaining about missing my mom when yours wasn’t even around when you were sick,”

Violet shrugged. “Everyone’s got their own lives. Ours were just different,”

Prisha didn’t say anything, but she continued to stroke Violet’s hair. Violet could see herself starting to drift off amidst the warmth of their blanket cocoon.

“Violet?”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you for today. For staying with me,”

“Not like I had much else to do,”

Prisha chuckled. “If you say so. Oh, and one more thing,”

“Yeah,”

“Once I have Ruby’s permission to get off bedrest, we’re going on that sunrise walk together,”

She’d remembered.

Violet felt herself smiling. She was too far under the blankets for Prisha to see it though. “Ok,”

“Goodnight then,”

“Night,”

\---

The next day, Violet woke with a cough.


End file.
